Human Augmentation

What do I mean when I say human augmentation, and what does it have to do with singularity? Human augmentation is changing something about yourself usually by adding something with the intent of making yourself better. What does this have to do with singularity? Well, whats going to happen when we start combining computers with humans? what about a direct Brain to Computer link or cybernetics, or replacing body parts with machine parts.

Does it sound far fetched? Look at plastic surgery, that is a form of human augmentation, breast implants (aka breast augmentation) is a perfect example and is one of the most popular plastic surgery operations done today. Why wouldn’t people pay money to be smarter, to have better memory, to have direct access to the internet just by thinking. Why wouldn’t amputee’s have brain implants controlling a robotic arm or leg attached to their body.

There has been much progress lately in the field of Computer to Brain Links. There are two huge obstacles that need to be tackled. How to talk to the brain and how to listen to the brain.

Listening to the Brain

Listening to the brain is fairly easy, its just not very precise yet. This is done by measuring electrical activity in the brain by recording from electrodes placed on the scalp or, in special cases, subdurally or in the cerebral cortex, this is called Electroencephalography

Researchers at the University of Washington have used this technique to issue simple commands to a humoniod robot.

Rajesh Rao, associate professor of computer science and engineering, and his students have demonstrated that an individual can “order” a robot to move to specific locations and pick up specific objects merely by generating the proper brain waves that reflect the individual’s instructions. The results were presented last week at the Current Trends in Brain-Computer Interfacing meeting in Whistler, B.C.

A few years back when I first heard of this they could only do two commands “on\off” or “left\right” Now they are able to differentiate between multiple commands. Imagine 20 years from now as this field of research matures some more.

Talking to the brain

Talking to the brain is a little more complicated and invasive. Typically it involves placing small electrode or BCI (Brain Computer Interface) directly into the grey matter of the brain. This has been used to restore vision in the blind…. Sort of.

In vision science, direct brain implants have been used to treat non-congenital (acquired) blindness. One of the first scientists to come up with a working brain interface to restore sight was private researcher, William Dobelle.

Dobelle’s first prototype was implanted into Jerry, a man blinded in adulthood, in 1978. A single-array BCI containing 68 electrodes was implanted onto Jerry’s visual cortex and succeeded in producing phosphenes, the sensation of seeing light. The system included TV cameras mounted on glasses to send signals to the implant. Initially the implant allowed Jerry to see shades of grey in a limited field of vision and at a low frame-rate also requiring him to be hooked up to a two-ton mainframe. Shrinking electronics and faster computers made his artificial eye more portable and allowed him to perform simple tasks unassisted.

In 2002, Jens Naumann, also blinded in adulthood, became the first in a series of 16 paying patients to receive Dobelle’s second generation implant, marking one of the earliest commercial uses of BCIs. The second generation device used a more sophisticated implant enabling better mapping of phosphenes into coherent vision. Phosphenes are spread out across the visual field in what researchers call the starry-night effect. Immediately after his implant, Jens was able to use his imperfectly restored vision to drive slowly around the parking area of the research institute.

The article discusses a patient that had his heart replaced with a mechanical heart. The heart is said to be stable for a 10 year period. Think about future applications of this augmentation. Heart disease could be irradicated or severely reduced through this type of augmentation.

Augmentation is definitely interesting, and I agree that it will continue at an accelerated pace in the future, but I don’t think mechanical augmentation is the true future of this field. The future I feel that will be pursued will consist mainly of biological augmentation. I think that learning what our flesh is truly capable of, and implementing that information, is the future of “Human Augmentation.
A good example of biological augmentation might be the ability to see like a hawk. Using amniotic stem cells a researcher could, theoretical, engineer an eye that your body would accept as your own but manipulate it, subtly, to see more clearly. Another example might be the amputee. Just “grow” him a new arm, but instead of making it the same as before increase the density of the bone and muscle tissues, like we see in chimps and other primates, and, ta dum, a super arm/leg.
The ideas above may seem like science fiction, but I strongly suspect that biological, not mechanical, “human augmentation” is the future for the simple reason that, although humans will always strive to be better/stronger/smarter, we will always have the basic necessity to be “human”.

Very good points, I think you will see nano-tech and human augmentation advance on three fronts. I call it “The 3 icals”. Mechanical, Biological and Chemical. I don’t think one will overpower the other I think all three fields of study will advance almost equally and be used in combination with one another. Mechanical nano-machines and interfaces will be developed. New chemical structures and compounds will be made to make the mechanical things work and small nano-parts will be “gown chemically”. You will also see biological fields advance whether its through stem cells, genetic modification or just tissue growth. You will see bio-mech devices I think that will combine biological tissue with mechanical parts. it will be interesting to watch how these three very different fields advance towards the same goals and the ways they all go about doing it.

One Example: Building a better leg bone.

Chemical: Grow carbon nanotubes in the lab
Mechanical: Build a new bone out of some metal (similar to what we do now)
Biological: Grow a new bone from the persons own genetic material (probably through stem cells or bone samples)

Or more likely. Grow the carbon nanotubes (light and very strong) attach it to a mechanical knee and grow bone tissue or a biological coating on top of the nanotubes that the muscle can attach to and the bodies immune system will not reject.